Chris McCandless

Christopher Johnson McCandless (/məˈkændlɪs/; February 12, 1968 – c. August 1992), also known by his pseudonym "Alexander Supertramp", was an American adventurer who sought an increasingly nomadic lifestyle as he grew up. McCandless is the subject of Into the Wild, a nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer that was later made into a full-length feature film.

After graduating from Emory University in Georgia in 1990, McCandless traveled across North America and eventually hitchhiked to Alaska in April 1992. There, he entered the Alaskan bush with minimal supplies, hoping to live simply off the land. On the eastern bank of the Sushana River, McCandless found an abandoned bus, Fairbanks Bus 142, which he used as a makeshift shelter until his death. In September, his decomposing body, weighing only 67 pounds (30 kg), was found inside the bus by a hunter. McCandless's cause of death was officially ruled to be starvation, although the exact circumstances relating to his death remain the subject of some debate.

In January 1993, Krakauer published an article about McCandless in that month's issue of Outside magazine. He had been assigned the story and had written it under a tight deadline. Inspired by the details of McCandless's story, Krakauer wrote the biographical book Into the Wild, which was subsequently adapted into a 2007 film directed by Sean Penn, with Emile Hirsch portraying McCandless. That same year, McCandless became the subject of Ron Lamothe's documentary The Call of the Wild.